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tv   The Daily Rundown  MSNBC  December 6, 2012 6:00am-7:00am PST

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what did you learn? >> i think we'll get a deal, still. >> do you really? >> yes. >> you feel confident? >> the second term for the president and the economy is even more important to both parties. >> what have you learned? >> i think the president has learned that he needs to stand tough with the republicans. >> that's it. >> and that's -- that is the lesson of his election. >> instead of backwards the way he did his first two years. >> exactly right. >> axelrod is coming on tomorrow and we've taken that mustache off. if it's way too early it's "morning joe." stick around right now though for chuck todd "the daily rundown." take it to the bank. timothy geithner says the white house is ready to go over the cliff. republicans might stucmble, though, into having some leverage if they end up backing the tax rate plan now and kick the rest of the can to february. one top republican governor has some stinging sarcasm for his
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own party's position. in the middle east the situation in syria turns from serious to scary. concerns over chemical weapons has secretary clinton conferring with her russian counterpart today to try to avoid deadly developments. an nbc news exclusive, afghanistan's president hamid karzai talks about his country's future and ongoing insecurity and blames the taliban of course. guess who else? nato and the united states. good morning from washington. it's thursday, december 6th, 2012. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd. let's get right to my first reads of the morning. today's fiscal cliff photo op of the day is going to be in suburban northern virginia when the president will remind the public yet again that without a budget deal taxes will go up on 100% of americans at the end of the year. he'll visit the home of a middle class family who shared their story through the white house's hash tag my 2k social media campaign. with talks and a public stalemate on wednesday the
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president called speaker boehner their first conversation of the week. the two sides agreed on one thing. they wouldn't characterize the conversation. aides even refused to say how long the two leaders talked. this latest move, though, treasury secretary timothy geithner showed cnbc wednesday the white house is prepared to go over the cliff if democrats and republicans fail to get a deal done. >> when it comes to raising taxes on the wealthy, those making more than $250,000, if republicans do not agree to that, is the administration prepared to go over the fiscal cliff? >> oh, absolutely. again, there is no prospect to an agreement that doesn't involve those rates going up on the top 2% of the wealthiest. >> and that is the important phrase there, prepared to go off the cliff if there is no agreement on raising those rates. we're going to get to that in a minute. utah republican senator orrin hatch fired back and said, quote this, is one of the most
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stunning and irresponsible statements i've heard in some time. the american people want us to find a reasonable path forward not to rattle our sabers and play this dangerous game. of course, both sides are playing games. they are rattling their sabers. house members streamed out of the capitol and headed out of town wednesday after canceling today's session. they insist nothing will get done until the president makes a counteroffer to what they say is their full fledged proposal for monday. >> the revenues we're putting on the table are going to come from, guess who? the rich. there are ways to limit deductions, close loopholes, and have the same people pay more of their money to the federal government without raising tax rates. >> the white house says they are not counteroffering until the gop publicly, fully budges on tax rates. for the second day in a row speaking to ceos of the business round table the president floated the possibility of a compromise that sets the top
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rate lower than 39.6%. >> we've seen some movement over the last several days among some republicans. i think there is a recognition that maybe they can accept some rate increases as long as it's combined with serious entitlement reform and additional spending cuts. >> "the washington post" reports today that republican centrists and even some conservatives are calling on boehner to concede on rates now while he still has some leverage to demand something in return. the post also has an interesting nugget from a guy at the helm of the tax writing, house ways and means committee. dave camp said this to "the post." quote, he was reluctant to draft such a plan to compromise on a tax rate above 35% but below 39.2% unless the white house agreed to a tax revenue target well below the $1.6 trillion obama has demanded over the next decade. hello.
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open door anybody? that door on rates is clearly not entirely shut on the republican side nor on the president's side. "the post" lays out a scenario in which the house could adopt two competing bills, one extending the bush rates for everyone including the wealthy. the other extending the bush rates just for those making less than $250,000 a year. it gives republicans the opportunity to vote on both bills. both bills would then go to the senate. which would just pass the middle class tax cut bill or the house would end up passing what the senate already passed and that other bill just goes to die. so with it looking less and less likely washington will go over the cliff, that's gone. here are the real questions now. one, how big a deal will the parties make before the end of the year? two, have republicans stumbled into what could be political leverage at least in the short term? if all republicans do is extend the middle class tax cuts, punting the rest of this fight to february, when the threat of a default looms, thanks to the debt ceiling, do they think they suddenly have the upper hand?
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maybe. the president warned republicans wednesday though not to use the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip. >> if congress in any way suggests that they're going to tie negotiations to debt ceiling votes, and take us to the brink of default once again, as part of a budget negotiation, which by the way we have never done in our history until we did it last year, i will not play that game. >> well, but on the debt ceiling point, republicans are united. there is a lack of unit on the tax rate issue, not on this one. politically a limited victory on middle class tax cuts could be the worst kind of victory for the white house because it could tip the leverage and enlarge the debate over spending and entitlements to the republicans. they don't care if the political popularity goes down on this. they think they could still have this leverage. one thing that could ferment all
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that if enough conservatives buck boehner and refuse to make any deal. despite outside conservative groups and small vocal wing of the house making a stink about boehner's first offer on taxes, there are actually no signs of any leadership challenge, folks. importantly, every member of the house leadership has been squarely behind boehner, unlike frankly where things were in july of 2011 and that includes majority leader eric canter. budget chairman paul ryan also signed on though he is a little more wobbly in a new interview with "time" magazine. quote, he says this. i believe in this budget fight that you can get to common ground without compromising principles. he says after his speech practice. but moments later according to "time" he declares common ground is possible only so long as the tax rates are not going up. advisers have admitted to "time" something that is hardly a shock. ryan is eying a run for president. and though ryan told the magazine i've decided not to decide when it comes to presidential ambitions. another guy who clearly has 2016 in mind louisiana governor bobby
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jindal weighs in on the fiscal cliff in politico in an op-ed this morning and check this out. at present any reading of the headlines over the past week indicates that republicans are fighting to protect the rich and cut benefits for seniors. it may be possible to have worse political positions than that, but i'm not sure how. obviously he is another person that says, cave on the rates issue and start negotiating on everything else. finally this week, there is a much more serious potential issue on the table than the fiscal cliff, folks. secretary of state hillary clinton did an unusual thing and warned president assad there will be consequences if he crosses a line and uses chemical weapons. we know why. pentagon sources tell nbc news the syrian government has loaded seran gas a deadly nerve agent, into aerial bombs and is just waiting for a command from president assad to use it. this week u.s. intelligence detected that flurry of activity at chemical weapon sites.
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>> our concerns are an increasingly desperate assad regime might turn to chemical weapons or might lose control of them to one of the many groups that are now operating within syria. we have sent an unmistakable message that this would cross a red line and those responsible would are held to account. >> this morning in dublin a sign that the diplomacy is intensifying secretary clinton met with her counterpart, russian minister lab rov and a u.n. special envoy on the side of an international security conference she is taking part in. russia is one of syria's main allies but have opposed and opposed any u.n. measures against him up until this point. if clinton can submit russian support the u.n. security council might be able to pass a sanctions resolution against the syrian government particularly because of the chemical weapons
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issue. on wednesday in brussels clinton also renewed support for the syrian opposition. is there an exit strategy for assad? though the u.n. secretary of general said yesterday the world should not let him seek asylum senator kerry told andrea mitchell he disagrees. >> it's in our security interests to be able to get a transition that is controlled and that is negotiated and that is orderly because the alternative to that is you could have 200,000, 500,000 people killed. >> if syria crosses the red line in chemical weapons what will the u.s. do? middle east expert jeffrey goldberg joins us on the escalating violence across the region in a scoop that some people missed that he had. we'll expose it here. plus an msnbc news exclusive. afghan president hamid karzai blames the u.s. and nato forces for what he says is growing insecurity in his country. what he told our own reporter about the future of the
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relationship between the two countries and he weighs in on the petraeus scandal. we'll be live in kabul next. but first a look ahead at the president's schedule. we have a photo op today on the fiscal cliff. he heads over to falls church. but the big thing, at night is the national christmas tree lighting. he'll deliver a few remarks there. for years, our own willard scott used to play santa claus and do that lighting. interesting to see what celebrity shows up there. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. [ female announcer ] beef, meet flavor boost. flavor boost, meet beef. it's swanson flavor boost. concentrated broth to add delicious flavor to your skillet dish in just one stir. mmm! [ female announcer ] cook, meet compliments. get recipes at flavorboost.com. [ male announcer ] it's that time of year again. medicare open enrollment. time to compare plans and costs.
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remarks likely to be seen as an insult to u.s. forces, afghan
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president hamid karzai told nbc exclusively that he doesn't just blame the country's insecurity on the taliban. he blames it on the americans. >> part of the insecurity is coming to us from the structures nato and america created in afghanistan, the private security firms. the contractors promoted at the cost of the afghan people, and the way they behaved with the afghan people and the anger that has caused in the afghan people and the resulting insecurity. >> would you say you believe that some of these would be intentional insecurity brought by nato and the united states? >> it is a very strong perception that some of that insecurity is intentional, yes. >> it was part of the exclusive interview with president karzai and she joins me now from kabul. i want to throw to more but i
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just have to react to that. is he playing local politics or does he really believe what he said? you know this guy well. >> chuck, i think he actually believes what he says and he's actually, when he talks about the insecurity being caused by the u.s. and nato he is particularly pointing to the provinces that border the capital province of kabul, logar, anwar provinces. he says these are areas where it is very insecure but also says he believes it is those private security companies not necessarily nato but contractors employed by nato and the united states that are causing insecurity in these areas. he is not the only afghan official that i've heard that from. this is something they really wanted to get out there to the american public. >> all right. i want to go to two other parts of the interview. one has to do -- he had some interesting reaction to general petraeus. before we get to that, the big
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issue that's coming up, when the u.s. troops withdrawal is going to be. how many troops remain behind. what is the u.s. force? obviously just like with the iraqis the united states will want to have some sort of frankly legal -- they want to know they're going to be protected legally in that country by karzai's government. what did he say to that? >> well, president karzai said that he is willing to talk about immunity with u.s. soldiers in afghanistan. he is aware that the united states wants to keep about 14,000 to 20,000 soldiers in afghanistan after the combat withdrawal to help train and assist afghan forces. he said it is something they can talk about with president obama and america but it is something he won't touch on until the situation with bagram detainees is taken care of. president obama and president karzai signed a strategic partnership last spring and said that all detainees will be handed over into afghan hands
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but he says the u.s. is in violation of that agreement and until that is resolved he will not talk to the americans about a security agreement. let's listen to what he had to say. >> the united states of america must make absolutely sure that they respect afghanistan's sovereignty, that they respect afghanistan's laws. that no afghan is hurt or his or her rights violated by u.s. soldiers or by the behavior of the u.s. forces as a whole. therefore, it comes to the united states making sure that in letter and in practice it respects afghan's sovereignty. >> chuck, with all these strong words we just heard him say and the sound bites we just played
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we should also mention that president karzai did say that for the most part the sacrifices that have been made in afghanistan in the last ten years were worth it. the thousands of american lives that were lost as well as the tens of thousands of afghan lives that were lost. >> right. >> including his family members. chuck? >> very quickly, on petraeus, he obviously was following the scandal a little bit. what was his reaction? >> it was a very interesting reaction, chuck. it was actually a coded reaction. he said that when he heard about the scandal all he could think about were the vine trees and the thousands and thousands of trees that were destroyed in and the afghans who suffered. what i read from that after hearing what afghan officials had to say about general petraeus and his leadership in afghanistan, they found him to be someone who terrorized afghanistan. that's the way they see it. and he was here during the kandahar offensive and many people say that kandahar was pretty much demolished and many afghans were killed.
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president karzai said that all he could think about was the suffering that the people endured while general petraeus may have had other types of relations in kabul. chuck? >> wow. interesting. all right. nice work. thank you very much. well, let's stick to foreign policy here. just as the u.s. works to extricate itself from one part of the middle east new fears it may have to intervene in another. secretary of state hillary clinton meeting today with her russian counterpart in the u.n. envoy for syria, amid news the military there has chemical weapons loaded onto aerial bombs and is ready to fire. jeffrey goldberg is national correspondent for "the atlantic" and joins me now. mr. goldberg, good morning. >> good morning. >> i would love to get your reaction to the karzai interview but we have a lot. if people only understood -- >> so many dysfunctional countries to talk about. >> let's focus on syria. there may be an arms race here between three different countries who are ready to
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decapitate assad militarily if he goes through with the chemical weapons. explain. >> yeah, well obviously you have the u.s. saying it's no go. they've communicated that to him directly. >> that they will use military -- they're not the openly one. >> they are not the only one. i reported earlier this week israel has already informed or asked for approval of the jordanians that they might have to go ahead and do this. >> what did the jordanians say? >> they said not yet. not yet. >> that is not enough. >> it's not -- certainly not a no. turkey is not a no. jordan is not a no. there is one thing a lot of countries in the middle east can agree on right now it is that syria's use of chemical weapons would be terrible. even more terrible would be the use of those chemical weapons by jihadist groups fighting syria so there are a number of fears. one is that assad is crazy and desperate enough to use chemical weapons on his own people. of course there is precedent for that in the middle east. saddam hussein did the very same thing. >> right. >> the second fear thes lose
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control over their chemical weapons stockpiles and they fall into the hands of these terrible people. >> where are we going here? it's clear that -- so we're learning, you know, it is one of these things, the headlines today are backwards. right? in this respect. so two days ago president obama and secretary clinton said what they said. it turns out it was after they learned that the sarin gas -- >> right. >> today we learned why they said what they said though some people are interpreting it the other way that somehow the syrians are responding to the president. >> no, no. >> that is where i want to clear up some of that confusion. >> no, no. >> where are we going? >> well, this is the great unknown. the great unknown. look, there has to be an international military response to the use of chemical weapons. we made a terrible mistake -- >> would it be preemptive? >> this is the question. the israelis want it preemptive. it seems the turks want to be preemptive. countries very close to syria obviously would like to preempt this if at all possible. the u.s. has said this is a red line. the problem with the u.s. red line of course is that it's telling bashar assad what
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doesn't cross the red line, which is -- >> everything else. >> the conventional destruction. >> there is a political cartoon somebody sent me this morning that had assad, you know, has president obama lecturing don't you use chemical weapons and assad saying okay while they show him clubbing his people. he is still just brutalizing syrians. >> hundreds are dying every day. you could kill the same number of people or more with chemical weapons. it's a different order of magnitude in terms of the moral threat obviously and everything else but, you know, right now assad still has apparently free rein to do whatever he wants with his conventional munitions against his own people. >> you have to wonder when does that change? maybe the russians will finally get there. >> this is the key question. the russians have a problem with muslim extremism. they do not want chemical weapons falling into the hands of muslim extremists who might transfer them. >> are they on the way out of supporting assad? did assad accidently give them -- >> it seems like -- if you were the russian foreign minister and you're not but if you were -- you would probably be seeking a
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way out, too. there is no future for this regime. >> not anymore. and now it's like at best they can hope maybe the next regime they could be supportive of. very quickly one reason i wanted you on before, israeli politics. what is going on? who is in charge? what are the coalitions? i mean, i say -- >> it's like middle school, the playground. >> bizarre. netanyahu is a member of what party now? >> he is a member of the republican democratic party. he formed a hybrid party. >> yes. >> a republican conservative party. i don't know what. >> and the likuds have gone even further to the right. is that possible? >> sure. there's always, you know, in the middle east you can always be more extreme. >> okay. >> don't forget the basic rule of middle east policy. you can always get nuttier. >> yes. >> so the big issue is that the center left coalition is not really a coalition. >> what is she doing? >> she is running this party, then this one leaves that party because they don't want to be in
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that party so you have a lot of formidible politicians in the center and left but they hate each other so they can't seem to form an effective counterbalance. netanyahu will be the next prime minister anyway barring some unforeseen disaster for him. >> is there an alternative political coalition to him? >> not right now. >> not right now. amazing. quickly, morsi, what's -- wow. mubarak with a beard as they say. right? >> is that the reputation he is getting? >> what is so interesting is, and this is the important thing to remember, is that he's not mubarak with a beard because the people aren't allowing him to be that. >> he would like to be. >> well, i mean -- >> that is a leap. >> but you haven't seen much in the way of a democratic sharing, cons consultative attitude on his part. the people who brought about the revolution aren't happy with what he is doing and don't seem
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to be giving him time to enjoy his new maximum presidency. >> difference between your beat and my beat your beat never stops. >> yours doesn't either. >> i get a pause in elections. >> there is a fiscal cliff. >> whatever. this is more serious. always a pleasure. >> thanks. >> coming up the must see map of 2012 not about red versus blue. you know that. a lot more kohl toers this map. first today's trivia question. name the three governors who had the job, left it, and now have it again. if you can't answer this question before we go to break, you're not a real political junkie. the answer and more coming up. ♪ i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans?
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on our campaign radar this morning marijuana possession and same sex marriage both became legal today in washington state. last month voters legalized the use of recreational marijuana and on the same day passed the same sex marriage law. the marijuana law allows adults over the age of 21 to have up to one ounce of pot but it bans the use of it in public places and doesn't say sort of how you buy it. as for the same sex marriage law couples must submit marriage certificates at least three days in advance which means the earliest same sex couples can get married in washington state is sunday. former democratic congressman tom perriello announced he will not run for virginia governor in 2013 disappointing some on the progressive left. in his statement perriello said he doesn't feel called to serve an elected office right now and he backed former democratic national chirm terry mckaaulicas bid. he is expected to face the attorney general next november
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in what could be one of the most expensive, knock down, drag out fights for governor in virginia's history. south dakota democratic senator tim johnson said yesterday he is not sure he'll seek re-election in 2014. last week after former republican governor mike rounds announced his senate bid johnson put out a statement that asserted his plans to run but johnson himself walked back the comments yesterday saying it is far too soon to comment. also seemed to hint it is coming. he'll make his final decision by the end of the year. decisions almost two years in advance almost always close in retirement. the markets lose a little ground at the start despite a jump in jobless claims. a little better than expected. planned layoffs went up for the third straight month. more than 57,000 were announced in november. a big part of that comes from hostess going bankrupt. all of this sets the stage for tomorrow's big jobs report. economists expect to see close to a hundred thousand jobs added but that would be well short of
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171,000 jobs created in october. i've talked to some experts who say sandy, the sandy effect on the jobs is somewhere between 80 and 100,000 jobs in the month of november. so whatever it is you can blame sandy for what 80 to a hundred. add that to whatever the number is and it maybe should be what the number should have been. we are taking a deep dive into understanding the american electorate. it could spell a lot of trouble for republicans going forward. our fiscal cliff-mas gift today alan smith gets down gangnam style. what the senator is saying about the video that's gone viral watching the daily rundown only on msnbc. u see this? oh, let me guess -- more washington gridlock. no, it's worse -- look, our taxes are about to go up. not the taxes on our dividends though, right? that's a big part of our retirement. oh, no, it's dividends, too. the rate on our dividends would more than double. but we depend on our dividends to help pay our bills. we worked hard to save.
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well, the president and congress have got to work together to stop this dividend tax hike. before it's too late. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of all day pain relief. this season, discover aleve. all day pain relief with just two pills.
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and mitt romney fared in various parts of the country. of course the patchwork nation project breaks the u.s. into 12 types of communities. go to my trusty board here. remind you, boom towns, military, money, evangelical epicenters, mormon outposts, immigration nations, service worker centers, industrial metropolitan and tractor countries. going into the election, this is what we were telling you. mitt romney needed to do this well in the typical gop strongholds. evangelical centers, tractor country, mormon, look at this. he did out perform bush in all of these areas. all of these areas. he increased bush's margins or stayed the same in the key republican areas. and if you look at this, for president obama versus john kerry, again looking at this through '04 and the 12 lens the president did the same thing. topped him by five points in the industrial metropolis counties and increased the campus centers by a point in those counties. in fact, it was not a surprise.
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according to the director of the patchwork nation project he was on the show back in july and here is what he said about where the election would be won and lost. >> i can tell you right now with a pretty good degree of certainty how nine of the types are going to go in the fall. i mean, i know which ones are going to go democratic and republican. it isn't complicated. there are a couple -- but it is about the margins and whether or not you can paear a couple poins off the worker centers or if romney can take a couple points off. some tend to swing a little more. >> well, here they are. here's the three areas he was talking about. boom towns, service workers centers which are older, poorer, and rural, and the mondey suburbs. romney under performed and obama over performed in boom town. it was bush won by 17 points. and did you see here romney by just nine. we're really going to dig into
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this in a minute. the service worker centers bush by 12 romney by ten. money suburbs kerry won by one and obama by seven. let's break it down further. here are three boom town counties to tell you a little more about them in the swing states. you had wood county, ohio. loudoun county, virginia, hillsboro county, florida. bush won wood county by almost seven points. obama won. these are boom town counties. these are the counties obama completely flipped and won. he didn't win all of these around the country but in these battleground states he certainly did. let's take a look at the monied burbs bush narrowly won in '04. mccomb county, racine county, wisconsin. porter county, indiana. we'll look at here, obama won them all and he won them all sort of swinging it by upwards of 5, 7, 8. this one swinging by 11 points. last place to look, the older and the poorer rural sections, an area where romney did well overall but saw his margin slip.
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union county, iowa. bush won by seven. obama here. dauphin county, pennsylvania. juneau county, wisconsin. another very white area obama flips it by seven points. so why did we see this shift in the political middle and should this be the real source of concern for republicans going forward? right now let's bring in the bhaen hind patchwork nation. he is at the desk. it was about the middle. there was this mythology that somehow mitt romney won the middle because he won independents. >> right. >> it is completely clear it goes not the case. >> i think that is why it is important to go into these communities we used because of the way i like to think of the middle is not just independents because it is self-described. i like talking about places because places are what they are. they can't describe themselves. the numbers describe them to you. these places are moderate places. >> one thing and you want to look at this more and you'd like
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to lay over some census data when you get into this. i want to go to the boom towns. the boom towns were another name for the excerpts. is that the fairest way to describe it? >> i think that is a very fair way. >> the excerpts of 2004, this was how did bush do it. he won in all the fastest growing counties. romney won these places, too. >> right. >> but, boy, the margins were strong. who pointed out counties where obama actually won places that should have been republican. >> right. >> what is changed about these counties? my theory is they're more hispanic. >> these places are growing more hispanic for a lot of reasons. there's been a lot of growth out here and the construction jobs a lot of times i go to these places and those jobs often times have been filled by latinos and spanish who come in and work the jobs because the skills, if you got the skills you have the skills and language isn't much of a barrier. i see it all around the country. it's almost, the hispanic population of the boom towns now is almost 17%.
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it's gotten quite high. >> if you look at the places where we thought mitt romney was going to have to make inroads more importantly the monied suburbs, we picked out some, racine county, could also be talking about fairfax county, virginia but frankly also long island. this is a long suffering issue for the republican party. i tell you right now, republicans will not be able to win the white house if they lose those suburbs by the percentage points. >> too many people live there. the other place that is a big democratic strong hoemd is the big cities. they get big margins. a lot of people live there. you get out to the monied suburbs and if the democrats win by seven points republicans can win the presidency by losing -- they can lose the monied burbs if they win the presidency. >> you have 12 categories. >> right. >> are you at all thinking about
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changing your 12 categories? you know, this has been eight years in the making. there's new population trends. >> yes. >> that are moving. if you did change a category, what would you change? what do you think is out there that maybe we ought to start thinking about? >> two things that interest me is whether we should call boom towns boom towns anymore. they're bust towns. some are still doing quite well but you think of clark county, las vegas, it ain't booming anymore. >> right. >> the other thing particularly interesting to me is have we reached the point, i think we will get there, where the monied burbs split and we have something like a hypermoney burb where everybody is driving a bmw. >> give me a description. is this arlington county versus fairfax? >> absolutely right. >> okay. the easiest way for me. give me another one. >> i grew up in mccomb county, michigan. southern mccomb county is very different than northern mccomb county. there is a lot more wealth in northern mccomb county. you think of the rings around
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philly. the closer you are they're really monied and now and further away and it is sort of the split of the burbs. >> it is something when we redo the groups i want to look at. i don't know if we're there yet. that is coming. i'm convinced. just not sure yet. >> i know i'll have you back at least one more time before the end of the year. there is so much to dig into. >> a lot of numbers. >> i tweeted out your map. >> thank you. >> that was something else. wait a minute. there's like a special here. always good to see you. >> thank you. white house soup of the day, chicken tortilla. totally have nothing to say about this in the fiscal cliff. right back. you ever notice that some people just have a knack for giving the perfect gift? they put real thought into it. and find just... the right...thing. how do they do that?
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chairman michael steele. from the associated press the one and only and welcome to you all. michael steele, i am one of those saying let's stop pretending we're going over the cliff. it is clear we're not. republicans are coming up with a way to pass a tax rate hike. when will the white house realize that's happening? >> yeah. you're absolutely right. and i agree we're not going to go over the cliff. we'll hug them. you know, new year's eve we will all be hugging them. >> don't go that far. christmas eve maybe. the fact is you now have competing interests on the table, competing plans. the white house needs to get in the game now and stop trying to do the messaging argument and trying to push republicans into a corner. i think the republicans have a little bit of an advantage here. they can come out and play a card or two on, okay. we'll give you middle class tax cuts and then go back and sit back and negotiate on the rates later. >> we're in this weird standoff where the white house says, well, we don't owe them a plan.
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boehner owes us. boehner needs to say we've agreed on tax rates but everybody else around him seems to be agreeing that they're going to raise tax rates. then you say that to boehner's office. no, no. that's not true. >> right. meanwhile the american people are rolling their eyes and not paying attention to any of this. >> look, the stock market has been -- it's been a little troubling for the last three weeks or so. but absolutely. this is like total washington style political posturing. in the end will they get a deal? absolutely. they always get a deal. >> but the question is, is it a small deal or a big deal? >> well sure. >> and that is where i'm a pessimist on i think the smallest possible -- >> yeah. temporary. >> small as possible. >> they'll tackle it next year. >> because there is so much left on the table. we have the debt ceiling, one area where republicans really do have their leverage, you know, that is coming up, too. it's got to be a small deal. >> what is the debt ceiling leverage? i say it this way. okay. you've got leverage but if you use it, the entire -- the
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popularity rating of the party is going to tank. >> i was going to say can it go any further? >> if they use it. it is sort of a nuclear option of leverage, the debt ceiling. >> how interesting, too, that we're seeing this sort of split between the conservative movement type here in d.c. and members of congress themselves. and the "new york times" today talks about the meeting up on the hill where boehner has so much support. >> right. >> among his own conference and yet you talk to heritage or club for growth or anybody like that and they'll say we don't want a deal. they're getting to the point where they don't want a deal. >> but wait a minute. there is a third group. look at bobby jindal. how about what jindal said? who is no moderate. let's not pretend the guy tries to say he is a moderate and he said hum. apparently the republican position is protect the rich to cut old people. >> right. exactly. so you're finding everyone now squeezing in their message and trying to push boehner in a direction toward making a move. i think boehner actually has controlled this pretty well given the pitfalls that he has
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in front of him. and i think that basically you've got his caucus now saying, we're with you in this fight. we'll follow you through the door. that's a good spot for him to be in. >> so what is the white house -- do they just wait until boehner comes with the tax rate proposal? >> no. i think that they're very sensitive to obama looking like he is leading on this. right? like during the health care debate there wasn't any -- there was some -- during the health care debate -- >> they claim they're not going to do anything until boehner's budget. >> as the clock ticks down, the pressure is going to be on to do something, get something done. >> trivia time we ask name the three governors who had that job, left it and now have it again. we told you it was a super easy one to answer and many of you did.
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jerry brown, might not only we have a clinton match i think we have a clinton-jerry brown rematch in the primaries in 2016. ...so as you can see, geico's customer satisfaction is at 97%. mmmm tasty. and cut! very good. people are always asking me how we make these geico adverts. so we're taking you behind the scenes. this coffee cup, for example, is computer animated. it's not real. geico's customer satisfaction is quite real though. this computer-animated coffee tastes dreadful. geico. 15 minutes could save you 15 % or more on car insurance. someone get me a latte will ya, please?
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these outside groups, are they having any success
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pressuring? these ceos have been here every other day. do we feel like they're having any impact? >> no, i don't think they are. the cross pressures are coming because republicans are feeling primary heat, democrats feel they have the upper hand. the super pacs that spent so much money in the election that just concluded, this can be their social welfare aspect. they're starting to spend money on -- >> but not really. i don't think anybody knows what side of the debate to be on. >> of course not. but this is how they stay relevant until they get to 2014. >> i want to go to rnc stuff real quick. j.c. watts, were you serious or were you joking when you said you were thinking about running again? you opened that door. somebody else ran through it, though. >> that's fine. the more the merrier. the leadership failed, it should be challenged. >> are you going to do it or not? >> i'm still thinking about it. >> when do you make a final
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decision? >> i got a little time. >> i don't get on the plane until january. >> to the charlotte meeting. i mean, people know who i am. >> chris and richard taylor mentioned their first child into the world yesterday. >> national christmas tree lighting today. >> stay away. >> a piece coming out on bet about mr. watts and his chairmanship. >> i can't do gangnam style because all gangnam style is david gregory. later on we'll have the breaking news from the november jobs report. coming up next, chris jansing. bye-bye. fifteen bucks on rollback. wow! that's a savings of over 29 bucks! twenty-nine bucks!!?? and they're powered by friendship. see for yourself if you could save on the brands you want.
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